Dear Arthur

On behalf of the Director-General of the Department of Conservation, I confirm receipt of your request below.

Your request has been forwarded to the relevant business group for processing. You will receive a reply in accordance with the requirements of the Official Information Act 1982.

Yours sincerely

Emma Wolff
for Director-General

show quoted sections

Kia ora Arthur

 

Thank you for your recent request regarding the cause of death of kiwi to
complement the information provided regarding dogs.  This information is
not held in a central database, and kiwi deaths attributed to mustelid
predation, misadventure, disease, dogs, cars and other causes are
collected at a local District Office level.  Due to the scale of the
request which entails collation of information that is spread in various
datasets both formal and informal throughout multiple offices, we cannot
provide that information without a significant amount of effort and time. 
We could do so for dogs because since it’s only one cause of death, and an
issue for predominantly Northland and Coromandel, the scale of the request
was easier to meet.

 

We recently had an OIA similar to yours, and as a result provided all the
causes of death of kiwi with transmitters on as part of Departmental
monitoring programmes from the last two years.  We are happy to provide
this information.  I do note however that this set of data is not a good
comparison to the impact of dogs, since the majority of the monitoring
undertaken by DOC is in the South Island and Central North Island, where
dogs have a lesser impact.  I do have two databases from the Bay of
Islands and Whangarei Districts which will provide information comparing
dogs vs other causes, and this will allow you to make a localised
comparison for some of Northland.   I will caution that these datasets are
from birds handed in or reported to the Department, and as such likely
will not have an accurate account of more cryptic causes e.g. chicks being
killed by stoats.  It will give some idea for causes of adult death
however.  I can also point you to some published literature which has
summarised some of this.

 

Can you please confirm whether any of the aforementioned datasets are of
interest to you?

 

Best regards

 

Jess Scrimgeour                     

Technical Advisor Ecology - Mâtanga Mâtai Hauropi

Department of Conservation - Te Papa Atawhai 

37 Motutaiko Street, Taupo, 3330

DDI: 027 247 6343

 

Conservation for prosperity Tiakina te taiao, kia puawai

[1]www.doc.govt.nz

 

 

Caution - This message and accompanying data may contain information that
is confidential or subject to legal privilege. If you are not the intended
recipient you are notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or
copying of this message or data is prohibited. If you received this email
in error, please notify us immediately and erase all copies of the message
and attachments. We apologise for the inconvenience. Thank you.

References

Visible links
1. blocked::http://www.doc.govt.nz/
http://www.doc.govt.nz/

Dear Arthur,

 

Please see the attached response and appendix to your Official Information
Act request to the Department of Conservation, dated 26 September 2018. 
You requested the following:

 

Any comparative information on kiwi deaths from other means (to dogs), for
example by car/vehicle, drowning, stoat/mustelid, cat, loss of habitat
etc.

 

 

Regards,

Laura

Laura Mansfield
Personal Assistant
Julie Knauf, Acting Director Terrestrial Ecosystems Unit
Department of Conservation—Te Papa Atawhai
DDI: +64 027 408 3525

National Office
Conservation House 18-32 Manners St | PO Box 10 420, Wellington 6143

Conservation leadership for our nature Tâkina te hî, Tiakina, te hâ o te
Âo Tûroa

[1]www.doc.govt.nz

[2]hnhp

 

 

Caution - This message and accompanying data may contain information that
is confidential or subject to legal privilege. If you are not the intended
recipient you are notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or
copying of this message or data is prohibited. If you received this email
in error, please notify us immediately and erase all copies of the message
and attachments. We apologise for the inconvenience. Thank you.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.doc.govt.nz/

Kia ora Arthur

As explained in the response, unfortunately there is no North Island kiwi fatalities spreadsheet. Information is held within various offices in various forms, and would require a significant administrative effort to collate. Not all Districts collate this data even internally, since kiwi being handed in may be few and far between. Hence the refined version we have provided. Whangarei and Bay of Island Districts, due to the large number of kiwi handed in to them per year, maintain spreadsheets that are readily available and provided the comparison that you were seeking. Even these two dataset are held in different forms, with different columns of information, and the relevant data was collated in to the spreadsheet you were provided to answer the question you posed. The Bay of Islands datasheet does have an additional column that translates the cause of death in to a number (1, 2 and 3), but the Whangarei datasheet does not. To provide a consistent set of data, we opted to not have the column since it did not provide any additional information - simply a repetition of the 'Cause of Death' column.

I hope this clarifies the reason for the sub-set of data, and the lack of the additional column.

Best regards

Jess Scrimgeour                     
Technical Advisor Ecology - Mātanga Mātai Hauropi
Department of Conservation - Te Papa Atawhai 

Conservation for prosperity Tiakina te taiao, kia puawai
www.doc.govt.nz

show quoted sections